


Liberator

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: BioShock
Genre: Atlas is Real, M/M, Spoilers for Bioshock 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlas is a vicious, unforgiving man, and no price is too large to pay for revolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liberator

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 was written before BAS2 came out, so several things no longer comply with canon. There are no DLC spoilers.

Jack clambers clumsily over the wooden crates, holding the radio close to his heart. He imagines he can feel the lick of flames at his back; even now, his ears ring. The bathysphere will still be burning. Hours from now, it'll still be burning. Defeat is a bitter weight at the back of his throat. He stops in a small cave, a Vita-Chamber to his left and stacks of more unlabelled crates to his right. Arcadia must be just ahead. He's in no hurry to get there.

"You get to the bathysphere in the Rolling Hills," Atlas says through the radio. His voice drips rage, and Jack aches for him; aches with regret and sympathy and _guilt_ , until he can barely breathe. When the Vita-Chamber door behind him clicks open, he doesn't notice it. "That'll take you straight to the devil himself. And then all debts will be paid in full."

The radio goes silent. Jack stares at it dully, and wishes for a reprieve. Forgiveness for his failure, for watching helplessly as his friend's family burnt-

The cold gun muzzle at the back of his neck is almost a relief. At least it gives him something else to focus on.

"How about you drop that radio of yours, and I don't blow your brains out for being an accomplice," says a voice behind him. Jack stops breathing entirely.

"Are you deaf, stranger? Or just suicidal? Drop the goddamn radio, turn around, and then maybe I'll change my mind about killing you. Sound fair?"

Jack drops the radio. He also kneels slowly and lays his gun on the ground next to it. When he turns, it's with his hands up and conspicuously empty of Plasmids. His heartbeat pounds in his ears as he does. This is impossible. He knows the voice, or thinks he does, but the tone is all wrong, and the gun-

Atlas is everything he imagined, and still a total stranger. Looks younger than Ryan, but just as cold, and his eyes are a staggering, merciless blue. Frightening; he looks like a killer, and worse, he looks at Jack without recognition.

"I suppose it's rude of me not to introduce myself," the man says sardonically. "I'm Atlas, and I'm _concerned_ you might be in my way. Who are you? Another of Fontaine's thugs?"

_No_ , Jack thinks, but the words won't come out. He stares at the man who calls himself 'Atlas' and _doesn't understand_. This is not his friend in the radio. Same accent, similar voice, but the rest- the rest can't be real. This is not the man who guided him out of the darkness.

The gun's muzzle is an icy pressure under his chin, forcing his head up. "Look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you," Atlas says quietly. Jack obeys. He's conditioned to do so, to trust the voice that tells him where to go, and who to kill. Who to _save_.

"I'm sorry," he croaks at last. "Your family died. They were in the bathysphere, I couldn't- Ryan locked me in-"

He expects anger. Grief, shock, pain of some kind; incredulous laughter feels like a punch to the gut.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Atlas asks. "What family?"

"Patrick and Moira," Jack tells him, but the certainty is draining from his voice, and it comes out as a question. Atlas just raises his eyebrows.

"Who- you mean the couple from that Sander Cohen musical? For two months I couldn't make my people stop whistling the goddamn thing. Not that it's any concern of yours, but I don't have any family down here. Certainly not by those names."

"But you- _he_ said-" Jack gestures helplessly at the radio. Comprehension dawns in Atlas' eyes, and he laughs again; the sound is anything but pleasant.

"Fontaine, you shameless bastard," he says. "You take my name, my face, my goddamn _rebellion_ , and you throw in some tragic sob story to get people doing all the work for you? I never needed any of that. If people followed me, it was because they _believed_ in my principles." He steps away from Jack, though the gun stays at head height and doesn't waver. "The man in that radio ain't Atlas, stranger. Never was. And _Patrick and Moira_ don't exist outside of Cohen's warped stage productions, thank god. I don't know who died in that bathysphere you mentioned, but it wasn't any family of mine."

"You're him," Jack says distantly. He doesn't know what convinces him. The very real anger on display in front of him (and now he thinks about it, Atlas' grief over his family sounded off somehow; overdone, and too quickly replaced by a demand that Jack avenge them. But, of course, that makes sense if the voice in the radio isn't real), or maybe the hostility with which he's being regarded. _This_ Atlas looks like a man Andrew Ryan might be afraid of.

"Oh I'm _him_ , alright," Atlas says. "So how'd Fontaine get to you? He swoop down out of the shadows and offer you salvation from your monsters?" His tone has a mocking edge that Jack shrinks from. "Time you learnt the only _angels_ down here are the ones those Little Sisters harvest from. Look a little closer at yours and you'll find his halo doesn't fit right."

There's no response Jack can make to that. He hunts for one, but it feels like wading through sludge. Things have changed too quickly and he is aware that he needs to adapt, to change with the circumstances, but he has so many questions-

"You have a name of your own?" Atlas asks pointedly. "Some kind of history? I'd settle for knowing whose side you're on, and maybe the name of whichever daft bastard told you it was a good idea to wear white down here."

Jack glances down at his gore-streaked jumper and admits that Atlas may have a point there.

"I might be Jack," he says hesitantly. "I'm not too sure. There was a...plane crash, I think, maybe something wrong with the engines." He knows as he speaks that the words don't fit the way they should, and the distant screams he remembers from the cabin sounded different. But he doesn't know how, and maybe it doesn't matter. The end result is the same either way. "We crashed at the foot of a lighthouse. I swam- and then there was a bathysphere, and those monsters..."

_Goddamn Splicers_ , says a voice in his head, but Jack shoves it away. It was a lie. Everything he's been told so far is a lie.

"You're from Topside, then?" Atlas asks. "Well, I suppose that explains a lot of things. You showed up here and Fontaine hooked you. Reeled you in like a fish, and you never struggled once. Can't say I blame you; the man's game is trickery, and he plays it better than Andrew Ryan himself. My own lieutenants never noticed I'd been replaced by a copy."

Atlas lowers his gun abruptly, and Jack lets himself breathe properly for the first time in what feels like hours. He stays as still as he can; despite the voice, this is a stranger in front of him. Cold, unpredictable. Suddenly he remembers the empty shell of the Kashmir, the bombed-out dance floor and bullet-torn walls. The dead, and the remnants of the dead. A 'rebellion' led by Atlas, and he doesn't doubt for a second which one was responsible. The man in the radio bides his time in the shadows and tells Jack what to do. The Atlas in front of him _burns_ with a righteous fury that says he believes in his words, and his actions. He'd have led the attack himself. He'd have lost no sleep over the people he left bleeding in his wake.

Jack doesn't remember ever having much of a sense of morality. Doesn't remember much of anything, for that matter, but he finds himself suddenly angry. The false Atlas is a fairy tale, a lie, but the real one might just be worse.

"How many people died at the Kashmir?" he asks abruptly. "That was you, wasn't it? Not...Fontaine. You did that."

He stares at Atlas accusingly, and Atlas shrugs. "They had it coming," he says easily. "Profiting off the suffering of the poor and having the gall to say it was all down to _hard work_. And did they work any harder than the fishermen down in Neptune's Bounty, or the farmers in Arcadia? Don't make me laugh."

"So you killed them?"

"Revolution doesn't come from nowhere, Jack," Atlas tells him. "The people need to know there's a cause worth joining, a cause that won't use their labour and leave them behind like Ryan's 'Great Chain' did. We needed to send a message, and we chose the Kashmir for that."

" _You_ chose the Kashmir," Jack says. He's never been more sure of anything in his life. "Not _we_ , _you_."

Atlas smiles for the first time; there is pride in his expression, and the satisfaction of a job well done. "So I did," he agrees. "Ryan'd laughed us off before that. 'The protests of parasites, deprived of the gains to which they feel themselves entitled', or some rubbish along those lines. The Kashmir changed all that. My god, I wish you'd been there to see what it did for us."

"I saw what you left behind."

"Did you now? Tell me, how does it compare to the rest of Ryan's Eden? You think it was worse than everything he did to the people of this city? No," Atlas says coldly. "We tried negotiating, and petitions, and peaceful protests, and all it did was fill up the cells in Persephone. Only way to get through to a man like Ryan is fear. Show him you're his equal, and suddenly he starts treating you like a man instead of an ant under his boot. Funny how that works."

He turns his back without another word, ducks under an overhanging pipe and starts making his way down the tunnel to Arcadia.

Jack finds himself at a loss. It seems so unfair that the foundations for everything he believes of Rapture can be shaken in minutes- and that Atlas can just leave him behind. Turn away from him without worry, as if he knows Jack won't shoot him. And he's right. Somehow that doesn't make it any better.

The radio is sitting where he left it, next to his gun. Jack grabs them both and hurries down the tunnel in Atlas' wake. If nothing else, it might be a good idea to see if he'll give directions to the Metro. Only, he'll want to know where Jack is going, and Jack will have to admit he isn't sure. To kill Ryan. Because a voice in the radio told him he should.

Thinking about it makes his head hurt, and his vision swim. Jack pushes his questions ( _why_ and _who_ and _then what?_ ) to the back of his mind. He barely notices the tunnel opening up into a garden, until he ends up almost walking into the man he's looking for.

"Do that again and I _will_ shoot you," Atlas says distractedly. He stands frozen in place, scanning the garden for any sign of Splicers. "Watch your step. This is Saturnine territory and they don't take kindly to strangers in their playground. You see the air ripple, fill it with bullets. Lighting, if you have it, but don't forget to finish the job properly."

_Zap 'em then whack 'em_ , Jack thinks queasily. _Remember, the one-two punch_. There are moments where real Atlas blurs into false, and he can't tell if it's coincidence or something more complicated. How much of Fontaine's Atlas is based off the real thing? A fair amount, surely, if he fooled people who actually knew the man.

He follows Atlas down one grass-strewn path, then another, and tries to keep his eyes fixed on the undergrowth where Splicers might lurk. It's difficult; he finds himself drawn instead to the vines, the purple and pink and red flowers. Ferns and tall trees, like nothing he's ever seen before. Should he have? Are there trees where he comes from, Topside? He can't remember. It seems an odd thing not to know.

Atlas leaves the main path and makes his way to an ivy-covered wall. He pushes the greenery aside to reveal another tunnel of sorts.

"If you're going to follow me around like a little lost puppy, you'd better get used to taking the long way," he says in response to the question Jack hasn't asked. "I take it he's keeping an eye on you? Fontaine? Always seems to know where you are?"

"Something like that," Jack says, following Atlas into the tunnel.

"I'd wager he's using the security cameras. Ryan's got 'em everywhere and they're not hard to get into. Not for someone like Frank Fontaine, anyway, and you can bet he's had years to make sure he has eyes all over Rapture. I can't afford for him to see me alive just yet."

The tunnel ends in another ivy-swathed entrance, leading into what seems to be a lookout; one wall is covered in glass, and beyond it lies a forest of some kind. Jack wanders over and tries to see through the foliage, without success. He turns to ask Atlas where they are exactly, and that's when he spots the posters.

_WHO IS ATLAS?_ They paper the whole wall, the moss-covered stone underneath barely visible. Large, bright, impossible to miss. Jack frowns at the nearest one. As likenesses go, it's far from convincing.

The radio buzzes at his hip, and Jack flinches.

"You might hear things about me, see my name about," Atlas- no, not Atlas. _Fontaine_ says. "Think what you will. There was a time I cared about politics...But it's just an excuse men use to kill one another. I'm done with all that. I just want to see the sunlight again."

"Done with it, are you, Fontaine?" Atlas snarls from over by the door. He's careful to stay out of sight of the camera that Jack hadn't noticed before now. "Done with something you were never part of? While my people were giving their lives for the sake of freedom in Rapture, you were profiting from the Plasmids, and the Tonics, and the addiction. You knew what they were doing to us, and you never once did anything to stop it. Damn you. It's a toss-up who I'm going to kill first; Ryan deserves a good, public execution, but _you..._ _You_ get something quieter. And you can be sure I'm going to take my sweet time about it."

Atlas, Jack decides, is not a forgiving person. Proud, decisive, but not patient. He doesn't know when he became so adept at reading people; then again, he doesn't remember the last time he was around someone long enough to start understanding them.

Splitting up isn't an option, however tempting it might be to put some distance between himself and the man set on destroying the idealised, heroic figure Jack imagined him to be. Atlas is not kind. Atlas shoots innocent people and thinks it's justified, and there's no discernible reason why he hasn't shot Jack yet. Maybe he believes Jack will lead him to Fontaine. Maybe he thinks Jack might make a useful recruit. And still Jack doesn't leave.

Atlas in person is nothing less than _magnetic_. His morals repulse, but the force of his personality has an allure Jack doesn't know what to do about. He will follow because he has to, because Atlas wants to lead him. He suspects he's not the first to feel this way; Atlas has a conviction that matches that of Ryan, and it's no wonder it earnt him supporters.

Jack trails a few paces behind as Atlas makes his way through the thick foliage, finding paths and tunnels that lead them past the ubiquitous cameras and prowling Splicers unnoticed. His steps are terse, furious; Jack keeps his left hand clenched the whole time, ignoring the ice crystals that form on his knuckles. Just in case. He's become so accustomed to insanity that it wouldn't surprise him to find himself suddenly under attack. Why is Atlas letting him follow along? How long until he turns out to be just as mad as the next Splicer?

Suddenly, Jack understands. "You're not Spliced, are you?" He keeps his voice low, wary of the overlong ferns and the bushes that might be concealing anything at all. "You just- stole me off Fontaine, and now you're using me to watch your back, and trying to make me think I'm lucky you tolerate me."

Atlas gives a startled laugh. "Well done. Wasn't expecting you to work it out quite so fast; you never struck me as the thinking kind, if you take my meaning."

" _Fontaine_ would have told me I was clever."

"Would he now? Well, Fontaine is a liar who never says anything he doesn't stand to gain by. You want to go running home to him with your tail between your legs, be my guest. I got no problems with shooting a man in the back, if he deserves it."

It's almost tempting to go. And if he didn't have Neptune's Bounty fresh in his mind (Peach Wilkins was right, Jack realises, he was right all along) he might have done, and risked being shot. But he remembers the fear with which people spoke Fontaine's name; _Sammy G. was found in a sack in the salt pond_ , Wilkins said, and it's probably true. Atlas is not a man Jack likes so far, but he believes there are worse men in Rapture. It stands to reason they'd flock to a place like this.

"Where are we going?" he asks; it's easier on his pride than _I'm coming with you_ , but the meaning is the same.

"Somewhere safer than here." Atlas is jumpier now, constantly twitching towards any rustle in the bushes, real or imagined. "We got ourselves a way to go; couldn't have ended up much further from Apollo Square, but I guess that's just my luck."

"Why were you here in the first place?"

Atlas leads him towards another concealed path. This one slopes upwards, and the dirt under Jack's feet becomes loose, unreliable. He rests his right hand on the stone wall at his side; the other remains clenched at waist height, the skin turned an icy, silvery blue.

It seems like Atlas isn't going to answer the question. He doesn't turn to acknowledge he heard it, or even tell Jack to mind his own business. It's not until the ground levels out that he pauses, holding up a hand until Jack does the same.

"The Vita-Chamber," he mutters, brushing a patch of ivy from the wall to reveal a small gap where one of the stones is missing. "Bloody unreliable things, let me tell you. Not supposed to be keyed to anyone but Ryan, only I have a few friends at Ryan Industries who did a spot of tampering with the wiring. I knew it was only a matter of time before he sent assassins after me. Seemed a good idea to borrow the man's own machines and cheat death that way; shame these things never end up going as planned."

"But you're alive. That's not so bad, is it?"

Atlas frowns at something on the other side of the wall; Jack becomes aware of a slow _thump...thump...thump_... in the distance, and shivers. Another of those creatures in their stinking diving suits. Does this one have a partner? Sometimes they don't. More often they do, and Jack feels a pang of guilt at the thought of all the children he's leaving behind in Arcadia. He doubts Atlas will be amenable to helping him save them all.

It occurs to him that he doesn't know what this Atlas would have said about the Little Sisters. Save them? Harvest them? Probably the latter. But maybe he'd be open to convincing otherwise; the man in the radio certainly wasn't.

The steps are retreating, and Atlas relaxes a little. "Looks like it's headed away from where we're going. Nice to see luck hasn't deserted me entirely. It did with the Vita-Chambers; don't know if it's something Ryan meant to do, or pure coincidence, but a good half of them aren't working the way they should, or not for me at any rate. The closest I could get to base was Arcadia, which isn't bloody close at all. And every extra second it takes me to make my way back is time Fontaine'll be spending on corrupting my people."

He trails off, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular. Jack takes the opportunity to crane his neck and try to peer over Atlas' shoulder. Sees treetops, roof beams, hanging lanterns. They're inside the walls, he realises. Winding their way unseen past what sounds like a horde of Splicers, if the giggles and shrieks and hushed, broken sobbing is anything to go by. There'll be trouble if the Big Daddy comes back this way with a child in tow; Splicers don't seem to have anything resembling a sense of self-preservation. Though it might make for a useful distraction.

"Awful friendly with strangers, aren't you?" Atlas remarks right by his ear, and Jack flinches away immediately. He can't say he blames the man for not appreciating having an unknown factor breathing down his neck. Jack's surprised he let himself get so close in the first place. Something to do with the part of him that insists on trusting Atlas; unshakeable faith in a man who's done nothing to earn it.

"Sorry," he mutters, taking several pointed steps back.

He doesn't know what Atlas would have said, if given the chance to reply. Dismissal, maybe, or another threat. Jack never finds out; he's still backing away when the walls begin to shake, shedding a thin mist of dirt and crumbling mortar. The Big Daddy's roar seems to make the whole world tremble.

Even at this distance, Jack can hear the drill start up. And he knows what comes next.

Atlas turns away from the gap in the wall to give Jack a shockingly savage grin. "About time things started looking up. That's our cue to make a run for it, before the diversion runs out of steam. It's a few less Splicers to deal with later."

"Because they can't help what they are?"

Atlas gives a brief, harsh laugh. "They're in my way. It doesn't matter _why_."

They run; the drill becomes distant and the Splicers inaudible, but Atlas sets a punishing pace that won't let up. The ground is uneven under Jack's feet, strewn with roots and rocks that seem to purposefully trip him. He stumbles, stands and runs again. Atlas moves quickly for such a big man, and he won't wait if Jack falls behind.

The radio crackles once; the fake on the other end asks Jack where he is, and suggests he might want to take advantage of the Big Daddy under attack to harvest himself some ADAM. Jack ignores it. Eventually it goes silent. He imagines he can feel confusion being broadcast from the other end, where Fontaine must be wondering where he is, what he's doing. What will he do if Jack never reappears? Come looking? Or just give up on him? No doubt he'll find out soon.

Atlas leads him out into a clearing, pushing aside a section of rock wall that reveals itself to be fake; it slides open on little wheels, and Jack spots the glowing _Rapture Metro_ sign in the distance. It shines so brightly in the haze. Golden, like victory, and he starts towards it without thinking, ignoring the hissed, "You bloody fool, _wait_!" behind him.

Something hisses from inside the walls, and the air grows clogged, green and polluted. Choking. Jack doubles over and claws at his throat, an acid, chemical taste coating his tongue. Behind him, he can hear Atlas coughing.

_Stupid_ , he thinks numbly. _The cameras saw me. I should have waited-_

"This isn't right," comes a voice from the radio, and Jack clutches at it desperately. He feels a swell of relief and understands that it comes with the voice; Atlas is guidance, solutions and commands. Atlas knows what to do when his world trembles on its axis and leaves him too dizzy to navigate. "I'm gonna need you to listen to me. I'm no sort of botanist, but I think Ryan has just killed Arcadia."

_Yes_ , Jack thinks. This is poison in his throat; it dries him up from the inside out, and he can see the leaves on every plant and tree in sight beginning to wilt.

"The man's put something foul in the air. Bottom of the ocean, boyo. All the oxygen comes from the trees. No trees, no oxygen. Give me a spell to think."

Jack glances over his shoulder and spots Atlas in the shadows by the wall, hunched over with a hand over his mouth. The look he shoots Jack is as poisonous as the air; for a moment, Jack feels a sudden, desperate urge to apologise. To swear he didn't mean to. To beg the man not to leave him over his mistakes.

The radio crackles back to life, and Jack tears his eyes away from Atlas and his accusing stare. "Ryan's woman in Arcadia is an old betty named Langford. An okay sort, but not above doing a dirty job for a dollar. If she's still kicking around, I'm sure she's gonna want to save her trees. After all, she planted the damn things."

That seems to be all the wisdom on offer for the moment. Jack clips the radio back onto his belt, swallowing compulsively as he does so. The chemical taste is fading somewhat, though judging from the state of the trees that's not actually a good sign. He's just acclimatising, and they're all going to suffocate if something isn't done. His fault. He let the cameras see him, and Ryan was watching.

"Do you know where I can find Langford?" he asks, keeping his eyes fixed to the flickering _Rapture Metro_ sign. He imagines he can still feel daggers being glared into his back. He deserves them.

"Off to your left," Atlas says coldly. "If she'll let you in. Julie's not much of a people person at the best of times. But Fontaine's right about one thing; she'll put self interest above loyalty to Ryan any day, and she certainly won't die for the sake of letting him make a point."

"You're not coming with me, are you." It's not a question. Whatever thin thread of partnership was keeping them together up until now, it snapped the moment Jack jeopardised Atlas and his objective. He felt it happen. He feels its absence now, and it's more hollow than it should be. He doesn't even _like_ the man.

"You made this mess, and you can damn well clean it up yourself, _boyo_. I've got places to be." Atlas tugs a pistol free of the holster at his hip, takes aim at a miniscule camera up on the wall above his head, and shoots it. Bits of scrap metal explode in all directions, and Atlas tucks his gun away irritably.

Jack steps out of his way as he shoulders past, headed for the locked Metro door. Or rather, for the raised ledge on the wall next to it. He hoists himself up in one smooth movement. Jack follows as far as the base of the ledge and looks up at him mournfully.

"How are you going to get out?"

"Tunnels under the sea floor," Atlas tells him flatly. "It's a risky business, but beggars can't be choosers, and there's no better way to get around Rapture unnoticed. That is, if Ryan doesn't choke us all in his own arrogance."

"I'll fix it," Jack promises, and receives a nod in return.

"Yes you will."

_He's like a king giving orders_ , Jack thinks, staring up at Atlas towering over him. _Not an ordinary person at all. He'll kill me if he thinks I'm against him, and so will Ryan. So will Fontaine. It's all the same thing in the end._

But it's not the same thing with Atlas, whatever he tries to tell himself. And Jack finds himself stepping away, turning towards the tunnel that'll lead him to Langford. To fix his mistakes, so Atlas will stop looking at him like an enemy.

"I'll be more careful in the future," he says over his shoulder, and hears Atlas give a frustrated sigh.

"Not your fault Ryan'd rather poison the entire city than let you have access to a bathysphere. He's the devil incarnate; you're just a thoughtless idiot."

Jack winces, but he can't deny the truth in that. He should have looked. He will, in future.

"Get it done quickly and I might meet up with you at Fort Frolic," Atlas says unexpectedly. "No promises, mind you. I won't hang around longer than a couple of hours. And if you're not there by then, you can find me in Apollo Square. Assuming my guards don't shoot me on sight, which, knowing my luck these days, they probably will."

He doesn't say it out of any particular liking for the stranger he led though Arcadia, Jack knows. More likely he thinks he has a better chance of succeeding with Rapture's only sane Splicer trailing around behind him. It's not safe to go out alone without Plasmids. But he gets the feeling that Atlas won't stand for being reliant on another person. He'll wait the allotted few hours, and then he will leave, and to hell with the risk. If he waits, then the dynamic between them changes. He'd be as good as _telling_ Jack that he needs someone to watch his back.

Jack isn't sure where this sudden epiphany comes from, but he can trace the accompanying conviction that he _will_ cure the poisoning before Atlas leaves him behind. That, at least, makes sense. He's vulnerable in his own way; he doesn't want to be alone in the dark. Atlas is a vicious, unforgiving man, and the thought of never seeing him again causes a pang of almost physical pain.

"See you soon," Jack says, but Atlas is already gone. Vanished as though he never existed. But he did; Jack knows he did. The proof is in the wounds he didn't sustain, the Splicers he didn't have to kill, and the hidden paths he couldn't have found on his own. He heads for the tunnel to Langford, and spots the ruined camera sparking on the wall.

One less eye for Ryan to watch him through. One more reminder that he isn't mad. Atlas is real, whoever he is.


End file.
